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VICTORIA — A Victoria police officer investigated in the 2014 shooting death of 20-year-old Rhett Mutch has been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by the Independent Investigations Office of B.C.

“There is no evidence to support that the involved officers had any malice against, or motivation to do harm to, the affected person or use any force against him other than what was reasonably necessary to take him into lawful custody,” said the IIO in a statement released Wednesday along with a detailed report about the investigation.

According to what witnesses told the IIO, on the morning of Nov. 1, 2014, Rhett Mutch was texting with his mother Marney Mutch at her Dallas Road home across from Ogden Point. He was upset and threatening to come over despite a court order that he couldn’t contact her or visit her house.

When she heard a window break half an hour later, she knew it was Rhett. He came into her bedroom, she grabbed her phone and told him he’d be going to jail.

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At 10:51 a.m. she dialled 911 and followed her only son into the kitchen as she spoke to the dispatcher. She said her son had a no-contact order and was breaking his probation.

Rhett then held a serrated steak knife to his stomach with his back against the sink. The dispatcher heard Marney ask him to put it down. Rhett said, “I want to die … I hate this life, I hate this world.”

She later told investigators, “He has been saying stuff like this for a long time.”

Rhett lowered the knife, went into the living room and sat in the middle of the couch.

Two officers arrived at Marney’s house within four minutes. Others were en route. The dispatcher broadcast the scene unfolding and said a man had a knife to his throat. A supervisor said they should “try and probe, use cover, initiate dialogue.”

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The dispatcher told Marney police were there and asked her to go outside. She said she would not leave her son. He had pointed the knife down towards the floor and would not hurt her.

Marney saw the officers coming towards the front door. She opened the door, saw a big gun and asked, “Whoa. What is that for?”

The officer said, “He’s armed.”

She said, “He’s got a kitchen knife and he’s not going to hurt anybody with it.”

The officer told her they needed to protect her. He told Marney he had a beanbag gun.

“He’s not going to hurt me. He’s not going to hurt anybody,” she said.

She later told investigators, “So like, I wanted him to go away with it. He didn’t. It was frightening. It was only going to scare the hell out of him … He had tears in his eyes.”

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The officer would not let her stay in the house. He could see Rhett sitting on the couch, holding the knife.

As she left, two more officers came in the front door. One held a gun she said looked like a bazooka — it was a less-lethal riot gun. She said to them, “This is really overkill.”

The officer called out to Rhett and identified himself, “I’m here to help you,” he said, and asked him to put down the knife. Rhett took a while to respond. Eventually he looked up and said he wanted to die.

The officer looked back to see if an ambulance had arrived. In that moment, Rhett stood up.

The officer thought Rhett dropped the knife and thanked him. Then he saw Rhett had just changed his grip. The blade was pointing to his elbow as he looked at the officer.

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“And he’s not staring at me like he was before. He’s staring at me now. Everything in his body posture is still dead. He’s not giving any — but he’s staring at me like he hates me,” the officer told investigators.

He asked Rhett to please drop the knife. He said, “You’re scaring me. I don’t know if you’re going to hurt me or hurt yourself but I don’t want you to do anything. I just want you to put the knife down.”

The officer ran through his options. The space was tight so using a baton and pepper spray was not viable. He couldn’t get a proper shot with the beanbag gun and if it failed, Rhett might attack him.

“I drop the (beanbag) shotgun on my side. I put my hand on my firearm and I kept talking to him.”

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Rhett looked around and saw other officers had entered his house, five in total.

Officers later told investigators they didn’t know if anyone else was in the house at the time — something the IIO cited as a major communication failure — and were afraid someone else could get hurt.

The officer begged Rhett to drop the knife and talk to him.

“And before I know it, he snaps and he’s charging at the guys on the other side of the house,” said the officer, describing Rhett holding the knife at shoulder height and darting quickly without saying anything.

At 11:02 a.m., an officer who had entered the house shot at Rhett with a pump-action beanbag gun. He hit his thigh but didn’t knock him down.

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Rhett ran towards him and another officer, a tactical expert, who said he expected another beanbag shot. But it didn’t come. There wasn’t enough room to retreat or move quickly.

So he placed his finger on the trigger of his handgun and shot Rhett in the neck. He dropped to the officer’s feet. The officer kicked the knife away as others ran in. Rhett was bleeding heavily and moaning on the ground.

Marney was standing outside when she heard the shot, a boom so loud the duplex neighbour thought a firework had gone off in his house.

She was put in a police car and heard her son had been shot in the neck over the radio.

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The officer who first spoke to Rhett pressed a towel to his wound and tried to resuscitate him.

When paramedics arrived five minutes later they heard the officers telling Rhett to fight, “Come on buddy, breathe. You can do it.”

There were no signs of life. Rhett was pronounced dead at 11:29 a.m.

A police supervisor arrived and took the shooting officer’s gun. He was taken outside to a squad car and the IIO were notified.

The agency took 19 months to complete their investigation, something Youssef said is not ideal but, “We won’t sacrifice competence for the sake of time,” he said.

The investigation found the shooting officer did not break the law because the use of force was justified in the face of protection from death or serious harm.

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Also, the Victoria Police Department was not criminally negligent in their decision to confront Rhett rather than withdraw from the house to a safer barricade position and negotiate.

However, Youseff said investigators did raise serious questions about the actions of Victoria police.

“Unfortunately, significant communication failures led to different perspectives amongst different officers as to the need to immediately confront the affected person,” states the report.

Specifically, the officers did not all know who was in the house — the mother or anyone else — as they entered. The shooting officer said he would have proceeded with an armed barricade and never have entered the house if he knew Rhett was suicidal or that no one else was inside.

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Youssef said that since no recommended charges will be forwarded to Crown, the report was delivered to the agencies involved to examine their actions and protocols.

Victoria police said they will work with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, “as we remain committed to continual assessment of our practices. This is especially important given the steadily increasing number of calls from the public requesting that our officers attend to people experiencing some form of crisis,” said a statement.

Marney told the Times Colonist she accepts the report but maintained it was the police response — five officers, some carrying large weapons, cornering her son in the living room — that caused her son’s behaviour to escalate.

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“They created the situation that led to my son being shot,” she said.

Confronting someone in a mental health crisis with guns is the wrong response, she said. She doesn’t believe Rhett actually wanted to die, and said she was never in danger. “There was nothing aggressive about him.”

She wants better training for police dealing with people in such circumstances. “If they don’t give them any other tools, they’re setting their own guys up for failure.”

Victoria police Chief Del Manak met with Marney before the report’s release to hear her concerns.

In a statement Wednesday, he said: “In addition to the grief and sorrow this has caused the family, this incident has had a profound effect on the officers who were involved. Despite their training, experience, the action plan they developed for this dynamic situation, and their attempts to de-escalate the situation, this incident ended in tragedy.”

The IIO is a civilian-led office established in 2012 to investigate incidents of serious harm and death involving police.

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